Vietnam War

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Transcript of Vietnam War

Why Did the US Fight a War in Vietnam?Late 1800s, France colonized what is today Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, naming it French Indochina.

France surrendered to the Japanese in 1941 but then went back after WWII to try and regain control.

In 1946, communist rebels called the

Việt Minh

and their leader,

Ho Chi Minh, rose up in revolution against the French starting the 1st Indochina War.

So why did the U.S. get involved???Basically to hold the line against the spread of communism. America paid for the war the French fought against Communist Vietnam as a part of the Truman Doctrine (1947). In the 1950’s, America became involved again.A New Nation in the SouthThe US ignored the treaty...In 1955, the U.S. helped Ngo Dinh Diem become president, creating South Vietnam Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).He passed Law 10/59 which made it legal to hold suspected Communists in jail without bringing formal charges.

He also persecuted the

Buddhists; claiming they were helping the Communists.Resulted in massive protests in Saigon which lead to infamous the self-immolation (setting oneself on fire) protests by Buddhist monks and nuns.VietnamDomino TheoryThe U.S. supported the Vietminh during WWII because they were fighting the

Japanese. After the war, the U.S. suddenly stopped supporting them and sided with the French. Eisenhower's reasoning? Domino

Theory.

Based on the picture below, what is the concept of the domino theory?The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution1964: President Johnson claimed the North Vietnamese Navy

had attacked two U.S. Navy ships

in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam for 2nd time.Two days later, the LBJ administration used the attack to obtain a Congressional resolution, now known as the Gulf of

Tonkin Resolution, which gave the president "all necessary measures"

to support US troops and South Vietnam.

(Repealed in 1970 and in 2005, declassified documents revealed that the 2nd attack was a deception by the Johnson administration.)Leadership in North VietnamHo Chi Minh was educated and lived in US, England, Soviet Union, and China

before returning to Vietnam to lead the resistance against the French and Japanese during WWII. Sought peaceful means to end problems in Vietnam but knew they could survive a conflict.Most likely would have won the 1956 elections if they hadn't been rigged and war could have possibly been avoided.Enemies on All SidesFrom the North, the U.S. fought the North Vietnamese Army

(NVA). They were the official army of North Vietnam.In the South, the U.S. fought the

Vietcong, also known as the NLF,

an army recruited from South Vietnamese villagers.

They mostly used

jungle (guerrilla) warfare, which means they

did not wear a uniform and attacked in

hit-and-run type attacks and sabotage.The Draft and the Working Class WarLBJ needed more troops but men were not volunteering. A draft was put into place to gain more soldiers.

Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam.This group was made up almost entirely of either working-class

or rural youth. (Average age was 19)College students who did not avoid the draft were generally sent to non-combat and service roles or made officers, while high school drop-outs and the working class were sent into combat roles.

Racial Imbalance: Blacks were also disproportionately drafted and put into combat roles.Quotable Quotes"We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them in the same schools."-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)What does MLK mean by this? Do you agree?What do you think is meant by Vietnam being a "living room war"?Expanding the VoteMay 4, 1970: 4 students were killed by National Guardsmen who were called out to preserve peace on campus after days of anti-Nixon protest.

Shock waves crossed the nation as 2

students at Jackson State in Mississippiwere also shot and killed for political reasons, prompting one mother to cry,

"They are killing our babies in Vietnam and in our own backyard."

Led to an even bigger increase in student protests and shifted public opinion more strongly against the war. Need for Peace Becomes DeadlyMany college protestors of the Vietnam War were too young to vote and argued that it was unfair that people 18-20 were old enough for the draft but not to vote.

In 1971, Congress passed the 26th Amendment which

lowered the voting age to 18 in all elections.The Tet Offensive (Jan.-Feb. 1968)Widespread, surprise attack by the

NVA and the

Vietcong

across Vietnam.Took place during the Vietnamese holiday of Tet

(generally agreed no fighting.)Seemed like a

big loss for North Vietnam.

(Of 100,000 fighters, at least 45,000 were killed.)However, in the U.S., the American people were shocked by the offensive and felt like the U.S. must be losing the war. LBJ administration tried to convince the American people that the U.S. was still winning but they were not believed.A turning point in the war on both sides but for different reasons.The Credibility GapAs the war dragged on, Americans came to distrust President Johnson and (later) President Nixon. They didn't believe that the war was going as well as the Presidents said.

Difference between what the Presidents

said

and what the public

believed was the

"Credibility Gap."Getting OutPresident Nixon vowed to end the Vietnam War with"peace with honor."Nixon's secret plan involved a process called “Vietnamization.” This strategy brought American troops home while increasing the air war over North Vietnam and relying more on the South Vietnamese army for ground attacks.

End of the Longest and Most Unpopular WarBy the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. had spent $120 billion on the war (that's about $680 billion in today's dollars). Over 58,200 Americans were killed, 109,000 injured and with another 21,000 permanently disabled.

Vietnamese Aftermath: An estimated 2 million Vietnamese died, while 3 million were wounded (more than half injured or dead were civilians) and another 12 million became refugees. War had decimated the country’s infrastructure and economy, and reconstruction proceeded slowly. In 1976, Vietnam was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.Did the US accomplish it's orginal goal?The War Powers Act (Resolution)Requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of sending the military into action and requires them to begin leaving within 60 days unless authorized by Congress. It was passed by Congress in 1973 over President Nixon's veto.The End of the War

From March 1973 until the fall of Saigon on

April 30, 1975, the South Vietnamese army tried desperately to save the South from political and military collapse to the NVA. On the morning of April 30, Communist forces captured the presidential palace in Saigon, ending the Vietnam War and quickly Vietnam unified under a single Communist government and is still"Communist" today.Where in the world is Vietnam????President Kennedy's Part

At first, more concerned withwith Europe and Cuba but afterthe Bay of Pigs failure, buildingof the Berlin Wall, and the fall of Laos to communism, JFK turned his sights on

Vietnam.

Kennedy’s advisors were split…some wanted to stay out, some of his other advisors urged the president to send more help to Vietnam in the form of military personnel in an advisory, non-combat capacity.Sent the

Green Berets to train South Vietnamese troops.

By Nov. 1963, there were 16,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in South Vietnam, up from the 900 from Eisenhower's time in office

France had the financial support of the United States however, in 1954, the Việt Minh succeeded in getting the French to retreat and give up their claims to French Indochina. France and the Việt Minh signed a peace treaty called the Geneva Accords,

which

temporarily divided Vietnam into two zones at the 17th Parallel: a northern zone to be governed by the Việt Minh and a southern zone to be governed by the Republic of Vietnam with a 1956 election to unify

both zones.1st Indochina War and the Geneva AccordsPresident Johnson And Escalation

Coups and Assassinations

By late September, the Buddhist protests had created such disorder in the south that the American military advisors supported a coup. In 1963, some of Diem's own generals approached the American Embassy in Saigon with plans to overthrow Diem. With Washington's unspoken approval (but not JFK’s), Diem was captured and later assassinated on Nov. 2, 1963.

Just 3 weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas.

Just four days after the Kennedy assassination, newly sworn-in president, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), passed measures to increase the number of military personnel, escalating the US entrance in to actual combat.

My Lai MassacreA serious blow to U.S. credibility came with the exposure of the My Lai massacre (March 1968).Began as a search and destroy mission but after nothing was found, US troops killed villagers and burned the village anyways.Hushed up at the time and only discovered by a tenacious journalist in November 1969, US troops had killed up to 500 people; mostly women, children and old men.A Secret Plan to End the WarIn late March 1968, a disgraced Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek the Democratic Party's re-nomination for president and hinted that he would go to the bargaining table with the Communists to end the war.

Peace negotiations began in the spring of 1968, but the Democratic Party could not rescue the presidency from Republican challenger Richard Nixon

who claimed he had a secret plan to end the war.

By 1973, all U.S. troops had left Vietnam (except for the Marines guarding the U.S. embassy in Saigon)."Operation Ranch Hand"Defoliation program using Agent Orange. This deadly chemical cocktail, containing dioxin, killed off millions of acres of

jungle to try to weakenthe Vietcong – but left a horrendous legacy in Vietnam. The dioxin got into the food chain causing chromosome damage to humans. There were hundreds of cases of children born with deformities.

In early 1965, the NLF attacked two U.S. Army installations in South Vietnam, and as a result, Johnson ordered the first sustained bombing missions over North Vietnam. Used phosphorus and napalm bombs, the second one causing horrible burns to thousands of innocent civilians

Protests erupted on college campuses and in major cities at first, but by 1968 every corner of the country seemed to have felt the war's impact.

Reaction to the DraftSearch and Destroy TacticsThe United States countered with “Search and Destroy” tactics. In areas where the NLF were thought to be operating, troops went in and checked for weapons. If they found them, they rounded up the villagers and burned the villages down. This often alienated the peasants from the American/South Vietnamese cause. As one marine said – “If they weren’t Vietcong before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left”. The NLF often helped the villager’s re-build their homes and bury their dead.

In early January 1973, the Nixon administration convinced Saigon that they would not abandon the South Vietnamese army if they signed the peace accord.

On January 23, therefore, the final draft was initialed, ending open hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam.

The Paris Peace Agreement did not end the conflict in Vietnam, however, just America's part, as Saigon continued to battle Communist forces.

Paris Peace AgreementsBy 1965, there would be 185,000 combat troops and by 1968: 586,000 !!!!!!The draft triggered growing anti-war sentiment and distrust in a government who was sending their boys to war without a choice.In 1956, he held rigged elections.Wrapping up......From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won. -Howard Zinn, History is a Weapon: People’s History of the United States